The risk of someone who has had a serious cardiac problem dying can be cut by a new drug that has been cleared for NHS doctors to prescribe.

People in pharmacy jobs will be interested to learn that Brilique, also called ticagrelor, has been cleared for use with aspirin. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says it can help people who have suffered unstable angina or a heart attack and ended up in hospital.

The draft guidance says it works better than the usual drug given to those patients, clopidogrel. Compared with that treatment, Brilique cuts the risk of dying by 21% and patients are 16% less likely to suffer another cardiac problem in the year after first taking it.

A packet of 56 Brilique tablets costs £54.60 and it works by stopping new blood clots coming together, with good quality blood flow to the heart sustained.

Nice said it could help over 180,000 people per annum, 113,000 who have had heart attacks and a further 70,000 with the relevant type of angina.

Health technology evaluation centre director Dr Carole Longson said: "Ticagrelor is the latest in an ever-increasing number of important new drugs and interventional techniques that have been shown to reduce deaths in patients with acute coronary syndromes."

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

GPs spend more time and effort looking after patients for whom they receive payments, according to research.

Experts discovered that the quality of care was much higher for conditions where payments were made to GPs than for those where there was no reward.

They examined electronic patient data from 148 GP practices in England, covering more than 650,000 patients, from 1999 onwards.

As a result of these findings it could lead to changes in the way financial incentives are delivered, or lead to amendments in the GP recruitment process to stress how efforts should be spread across patients.

In particular, they looked at 23 indicators set out in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), a scheme where GP practices receive financial incentives for keeping an eye on issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

Results were then compared with 19 indicators not included in the QOF, such as for people with back pain, arthritis and dementia.

They revealed that quality of care was improving for all indicators before the QOF was introduced seven years ago, but since then those included in the QOF exceeded expectations.

Meanwhile, those not included in the QOF fell "significantly below" what was predicted.

The authors, from the universities of Oxford, Manchester and Bristol, said: "Improvements associated with financial incentives seem to have been achieved at the expense of small detrimental effects on aspects of care that were not incentivised."

They said the research raises important questions about the unintended consequences associated with financial incentive schemes.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "GPs should always provide care for patients based on clinical need, not on financial rewards. While the current system has delivered some important improvements in quality of care, this clearly shows that it needs to change and focus more on patients."

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

Vulnerable heart patients can significantly boost their chances of living for longer and avoiding life-threatening events through meditation, a new study suggests.

Researchers in the US found that patients who regularly participate in 20 minute sessions of transcendental meditation (TM) can halve their risk of death in some cases.

People in occupational therapy jobs will be able to draw valuable insight from the findings, which appeared in an online edition of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study focused on African American people - who have disproportionately high rates of heart disease. It found that the effects of frequent TM sessions could be as great, or stronger, than those of widely prescribed drugs. A total of 201 people with narrowing of the arteries and an average age of 59 participated in the research.

Half of those taking part learned TM while the others were given conventional health education classes. The study, which was carried out over nine years, found that those who meditated for 20 minutes twice a day managed to cut their overall risk of death, non-fatal heart attack, or stroke by 47%. Those who kept up with the programme particularly well by not missing any sessions had a 66% risk reduction.

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011

In five years, paracetamol prescription numbers in Wales have increased by almost 25%, the assembly`s shadow health minister has said.

More than 1.3 million items were provided by those in pharmacist jobs last year, an increase of 268,642 from 2006, figures obtained by the Welsh Conservatives have revealed.

The Tories have questioned whether NHS resources are being effectively used through the free prescription policy, and have claimed that taxpayers` money is being spent on products such as the painkiller and athlete`s foot powder.

A written question from Clwyd West AM Mr Millar to the minister for health and social services prompted the new figures.

He enquired into the number of times Bonjela, paracetamol, Athlete`s Foot powder, cold-sore cream Zovirax and cough suppressant Pholcodine had been prescribed by the Welsh NHS over five years.

In the statistics, paracetamol was prescribed 1.1 million times in 2006 and almost 1.4 million times in 2010.

There was also a 10% increase in the prescription of athlete`s foot powder, aciclovir - the activate ingredient in Zovirax.

Copyright ⌐ Press Association 2011